{"id":1227,"date":"2018-09-19T15:40:38","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T19:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=1227"},"modified":"2018-09-19T15:40:38","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T19:40:38","slug":"who-am-i-to-define-beauty-a-close-read-on-defining-beauty-in-wotb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2018\/09\/19\/who-am-i-to-define-beauty-a-close-read-on-defining-beauty-in-wotb\/","title":{"rendered":"Who am I to define beauty? A Close Read on Defining Beauty in WOTB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quote: \u201cI don\u2019t lack self-confidence but I\u2019m not beautiful, that is a word reserved for few people, people such as Louise herself. I told her this\u201d(85). <\/span><\/p>\n

This passage caught my attention by its distinction of self-confidence and beauty. Often times people associate self-confidence with beauty, and by separating them, they are left in a state that makes one question what beauty is and how it is defined. The author narrows down the definition of \u00a0beautiful by saying that it is only a word \u201creserved for few people\u201d(85). By doing this, the author made me feel a sense of intention behind the word. I felt as if when the word was used again in the text, there was deep meaning behind it. <\/span><\/p>\n

The author also defines beauty to some extent by saying that beauty is not self-confidence. Reading this passage in the context of the book, I feel as if the word self-confidence is a blanket for the word boldness. I use the word bold to describe unthoughtful action. The speaker is bold in their decisions for who they sleep with and how they interact with the ones that they \u201clove.\u201d Time and time again throughout the novel the speaker lets down important people in their life by showing a pattern of attachment, cheating, and deserting relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n

The word \u201cbeauty\u201d is ambiguous. It can mean many different things to different people. By allowing the definition to be up for interpretation, allows for somebody to step in and out of feeling \u201cbeautiful.\u201d Given the context of the book, and parts of the definition being already framed (as beauty being limited to a select few people and as being kind and thoughtful (the opposite of bold)), I think that the definition for beauty within this book digs deep into describing devoted love. Everything is confusing and clear, defined and undefined, wavering in emotion, but always grounded in intention. Louise embodies devoted love because from the start of her relationship with the speaker, her relationship with Elgin was clear in that they were not in love. I believe that in this stage of the book the speaker does not feel beautiful because they had just messily broken up with Jacqueline. They had many components that might have embodied characteristics of beauty, but they did not have grounded intention in the way that they treated Jacqueline. They acted with confidence, but not with beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reference: \u00a0Winterson, Jeanette. 1993. <\/span>Written on the Body, <\/span><\/i>85. New York: 1st Vintage International (Random House).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quote: \u201cI don\u2019t lack self-confidence but I\u2019m not beautiful, that is a word reserved for few people, people such as Louise herself. I told her this\u201d(85). This passage caught my attention by its distinction of self-confidence and beauty. Often times people associate self-confidence with beauty, and by separating them, they are left in a state … Continue reading Who am I to define beauty? A Close Read on Defining Beauty in WOTB<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3847,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3847"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}